aunt nellie was a fitch from fingal small like a wren is small inside her she carried an immense drawstring bag crammed with small kindnesses her husband ingersoll was well-read a farmer with a butterfly collection and a killing jar he kept on the kitchen counter he was born and died in the same house painted once as high as he could reach without a ladder
late april snow covered the green grass the morning i dropped in for tea a vise-like creation sat on the kitchen table somebody had been using it to crack walnuts i tried it out a few times while aunt nellie boiled water fussed with a plate of cookies uncle ingersoll called from the dining room would you like to see the automatic nut cracker
he was using a walker so the trip through the kitchen down the back porch steps across the wet lawn took a good...
Julie Berry was born in St. Thomas, Ontario, and she still lives and works in this small, southwestern Ontario city. Her poems have appeared in grain, Room of One’s Own, Quarry, Canadian Forum and Carousel and in numerous anthologies. Her first book of poetry, worn thresholds, was published in 1995 by Brick and reprinted in 2006. Two of her prose poems won in the 2005 short grain contest. Julie recently completed a second collection of poems entitled little strip room in heaven.
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